Santa in Peru

Traditionally, the students at EuroAmericano give gifts each year to kids at a school outside Pachacamac. It was a humbling, beautiful event, something I felt fortunate to experience and on my birthday nonetheless.

Here is the school:

It is basically one floor, open air with several rooms surrounding a center area. When we went in, we were greeted by a flock of students who were doing chants and dances:

The 11 graders at EuroAmericano did a Christmas performance that they wrote themselves followed by an appearance by Papa Noel (aka Santa Claus).

Each student at EA was given a name of a student at the school, and they were asked to purchase a gift for them. At the event, Papa Noel greeted the students by name, and each student receive their gift from their EA student. I brought a gift just in case a student didn’t show (which happened), and I was able to give my gift to Christian: Christian seemed overwhelmed and scared of me (Egads! Look at the crazy blonde-haired woman!), and even though I desperately wanted him to open his present (Selfishly, because I wanted to see the reaction on his face), he wanted to wait to open his gift with his family at home. He did permit me to take a photo of him with this gift despite his fear. I was touched by his love for his gift, regardless of what it was, and the love he had for his family, that it was more important to share that moment with them then with a complete stranger.

Here are a couple of more photos from the trip:

It was a great experience, and those kids have left an impact on me, more then they will probably ever know.